Many machines and devices employ actuating mechanisms that are actuated by a substantially rigid operating card or other substantially rigid substrate that is read and/or scanned by the actuating mechanism to thereby operate the machine or other device. Typical actuating mechanisms employing substantially rigid operating cards are used in conjunction with hotel doors, ATM machines, gasoline pumps and a variety of different vending machines.
In many machines and devices, internal surfaces of the actuating mechanism are spaced apart a distance greater than the permissible thickness of the operating card, to thereby keep the operating card out of contact with those internal surfaces, particularly internal surfaces of sensing mechanisms, e.g., surfaces of magnetic sensors, optical lenses and other surfaces defining the internal cavity of the actuating mechanism. In many of these actuating mechanisms internal rails are often provided to actually support the operating card in a position out of contact with the sensing mechanisms.
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/857,382, titled Patterned Cleaning Card and Method of Employing Same, discloses and claims a cleaning card that is capable of cleaning internal surfaces in actuating-mechanisms of the type described in the proceeding paragraph. However, in a number of these latter applications, it is highly desirable to provide a cleaning card that is relatively rigid to provide the desired cleaning function. In fact, in most of the applications wherein the operating card is substantially rigid, and generally of the size and shape of a credit card, or even smaller, it has been desirable to provide a relatively rigid cleaning card to clean internal surfaces of the actuating mechanisms.
The prior art has dealt with the rigidity problem in these latter types of cleaning cards by increasing the thickness of the cleaning cards, relative, for example, to more flexible cleaning cards employed to clean internal mechanisms that are operated by more flexible substrates, such as by paper currency. By increasing the thickness of the cleaning card additional material is required, thereby increasing the overall cost of the product. It should be understood that cleaning cards are relatively inexpensive devices, and any action that can be taken to reduce the manufacturing/material costs of such cleaning cards is highly desirable.
Cleaning cards having raised surfaces for cleaning or removing foreign objects from internal machine surfaces are known in the prior art, as exemplified by the disclosures in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,243,908 (Battle et al.), 6,107,221 (Nakajima et al.) and 5,153,964 (Gelardi et al.). However, none of these latter patents have dealt with or solved the problem of enhancing rigidity of the cards without excessively increasing material costs.
The disclosures of the Battle '908 patent, the Nakajima et al. '221 patent and the Gelardi et al. '964 patent are hereby fully incorporated herein by reference.
Essentially cleaning cards for cleaning internal surfaces of actuating mechanisms either have been of a size corresponding to a dollar-bill or of a size corresponding to a credit-card. The dollar-bill size cleaning cards generally are employed to clean internal slots intended to receive currency, and are generally provided in a thin, somewhat flexible structure so that the cleaning card can follow a desired curved path in the cleaning mechanism. Credit-card size (or similar sized) cleaning cards generally have been made thicker to establish or provide greater rigidity, since they are used to clean actuating mechanisms that normally receive substantially rigid operating cards, such as credit-cards, electronic keys for hotel door and similar devices. Unfortunately, in order to form the credit-card size cleaning cards with the desired rigidity they generally have been made of a thickness more than twice that of the dollar-bill size cleaning cards, requiring additional material and thereby increasing the manufacturing costs.
The present invention provides a unique and very versatile solution to the problem of cleaning internal surfaces of machine components, and more particularly to cleaning internal surfaces of actuating mechanisms, such as internal surfaces of sensing mechanisms that are spaced apart from each other more than the maximum thickness of a substrate that can be received within the mechanism. In particular, the rigid cleaning cards of this invention have a nominal thickness substantially thinner than prior art cleaning cards having the desired, or required rigidity to provide a desired cleaning operation.